All 86 Daft Punk Songs, Ranked Worst to First

Staying relevant for the long haul in the always-changing world of dance music is a near-impossible task, but French dance-pop robot-human-immortals Daft Punk may have found one way to do it–by disappearing a lot. Sounds paradoxical, but by taking nearly a half-decade between each of their albums, and basically keeping totally out of the limelight in between release cycles, they manage to stay outside the trends, existing on a plane of their own, and turning it into an event whenever they actually decide to re-emerge from the shadows and release new music.

However, one byproduct of this philosophy is a relatively shallow back catalogue. Though members Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter have been making music as Daft Punk for nearly two decades now, their discography encompasses just 86 songs–four fewer than even Taylor Swift, who was just four years when the duo released their debut single “The New Wave” back in 1994. That said, that number was even lower before a few weeks ago, when the duo released “Get Lucky,” their first single in three years (and not counting live or soundtrack work, their first since 2006), and has gone up by another baker’s dozen with the release of their much-anticipated Random Access Memories LP earlier this week.

Let’s take a look at those 87 songs, now including all the Random Access Memories cuts and including the handful of commercially released remixes they’ve done for other artists–as well as the 22 tracks on the duo’s oft-overlooked soundtrack to Tron: Legacy. In the case of songs that had multiple versions released–and given that Daft Punk have released three remix albums, there’s a lot of those–we went with the version of the song we most preferred. Check out our rankings, and let us know which of the Robots’ classics, new or old, are your favorites.

86. “ON/OFF”

Found On: Human After All

Almost unfair to even include this “song,” which is really just 19 seconds of channel-flipping on French TV. But Daft Punk inexplicably decided to make it its own track on Human After All, rather than just combining it with “Television Rules the Nation”–possibly to make the album an even ten cuts–so it merits inclusion on our list, an easy choice for the very bottom.

85. “FUNK AD”

Found On: Homework

Similar to “On/Off,” “Funk Ad” hardly registers as a real song–it’s just their breakthrough single “Da Funk” played backwards for less than a minute, included as the closing track on debut album Homework, possibly for bookending purposes, though it ends up being a totally dissatisfying end to a thoroughly classic ’90s album. Another obvious one to get out of the way here.

84. “OUTLANDS”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

One of the least memorable songs from TRON: Legacy–though truth told, only a handful of the album’s songs make a really lasting impression outside of the context of the score–”Outlands” is a whole lot of frenetically racing strings and horns for three minutes, possibly brilliant soundtracking a cinematic chase scene, but just kind of exhausting on its own.

83. “DISC WARS”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

A pounding, creeping track that goes on for a little too long–it’s one of the few TRON songs over four minutes, and feels it–though its Morricone-like sense of building anticipation is pretty undeniable.

82. “WDPK 83.7 FM”

Found On: Homework

A mostly unnecessary fake radio advertisement for Homework included as the album’s second track, though it rates a little higher than their other non-song songs because of the excellent reduxe clip of early single “Musique” that starts off the track, and how much fun it is to imitate the booming voice of the French radio announcer at the end of the track.

81. “FLYNN LIVES”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

Another minorly innocuous track from Tron: Legacy, stately and unmemorable. The duo does know how to produce a real righteous horn sound, though.

80. “GET FUNKY GET DOWN” (ORIGINALLY BY THE MICRONAUTS)

Found On: The Micronauts non-album single

One of Daft Punk’s earliest remix, they take a fairly slight deep house track and give it a little muscle and edge, but still fail to derive a real hook from it. Pedestrian stuff by their later standards.

79. “RECOGNIZER”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

Another atmospheric string-and-horn number, with some absolutely booming crescendos, but coming towards the end of Tron: Legacy, it feels inevitably redundant.

78. “WITHIN”

Found On: Random Access Memories

A piano ballad yearning for humanity, with typically vocoder-drowned vocals, which proves that perhaps doing yearning piano ballads is not where the Robots’ true strength lies.

77. “RECTIFIER”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

True to Tron: Legacy‘s Disney roots, “Rectifier” feels like it could have come out of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” section of Fantasia, so creepy is it in its processional march and wailing violins. It’s not much for a Daft Punk mixtape, but it could scare the crap out of your six-year-old cousin, for sure.

76. “TAKE ME OUT” (ORIGINALLY BY FRANZ FERDINAND)

Found On: Franz Ferdinand non-album single

As enticing as a Daft Punk remix of Franz Ferdinand’s classic dance-punk stomper “Take Me Out” sounds on paper, the final product is a little less appetizing–basically, all Guy and Thomas do the song is to dirty it up a little, spreading an increasingly voluminous squall of synth static across the song’s first few verses and final choruses. It’s still kinda cool, but it could have been so much more.

75. “ARRIVAL”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

Found On: TRON: Legacy

Another atmospheric two-minuter, with some “Moments in Love“-type breathy sounds, and with a bellowing single-note synth riff that comes off as pretty damn cinematic.

73. “ASSAULT”

Found On: The New Wave non-album single

An early b-side of Daft Punk’s sees the duo still trying to find their own voice in house music, coming off as a fun-but-unoriginal mix of LFO and Joey Beltram. Not a bad listen by any means, but it’s almost hard to believe they could make a song so anonymous.

72. “RINZLER”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

One of the better uses of synth as a core instrument to be found on the soundtrack, something we all thought we’d hear more of when news broke that Daft Punk would be scoring a sci-fi movie. More pounding drums and endless crescendoing, and again, short enough to not become tiresome.

71. “DAFTENDIREKT”

Found On: Homework

An enjoyable-enough intro to Homework, apparently cribbed from their live sets, though it cuts into “WDPK” just as its really starting to build to something. The “Funk back to the punk, c’mon” lyrical hook was memorable enough for Janet Jackson to sample it on her “So Much Betta” track from 2008′s Discipline, in any event.

#70. “BEYOND”

Found On: Random Access Memories

Hell of an attention-grabbing string intro to this one, and the bass line is extremely reminiscent of Michael McDonald’s early-’80s classic “I Keep Forgetting,” which is never unwelcome. Unfortunately, there’s not too much else to the song beyond that borrowed groove and the shrieking strings that introduce it–it never really goes anywhere and lasts for at least a minute longer than it has to.

#69. “THE BRAINWASHER”

Found On: Human After All

Very strong, Green Velvet-like pummeling central riff, but it gets a little grating over the course of four minutes, as does the duo’s distorted “I…AM…THE…BRAAIIIIIN….WAAAASHERRRRRR!!!!” vocal proclamations, which get more than a little corny by song’s end. Still, great in bite-sized chunks, as when dropped in the group’s live sets, best heard on the Alive 2007 release.

#68. “THE GAME HAS CHANGED”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

One of the more fleshed-out cuts from Tron: Legacy, sounding like a composition unto itself with its fine use of dynamics and pacing. Still not much of a central melody to latch onto, but perhaps the score’s most representative single track.

#67. “THE PRIME TIME OF YOUR LIFE”

Found On: Human After All

Takes a while to get going, and even when it does, it never really becomes the dancefloor scorcher you initially expect it to, but the song starts to make sense as it picks gradually picks up speed halfway through, until the song’s once arrogantly relaxed pace becomes unlistenably frenetic, probably making some sort of commentary about said “prime time” quickly slipping away. It feels right in the flow of Human After All, anyway.

#66. “OH YEAH”

Found On: Homework

An exceedingly one-note electro-funk filler track to end side C of Homework, but one that doesn’t try to stretch its one idea too far in its two-minute runtime, and which is pretty damn funky while it lasts. Another duo of European electro-pop eccentrics with a similarly titled jam from the ’80s would undoubtedly approve.

#65. “VERIDIS QUO”

Found On: Discovery

One of the less-memorable cuts from the second half of Discovery, “Veridis Quo” is one of the album’s more self-consciously proggy songs, sounding like something Peter Gabriel-era Genesis might’ve come up with if they were raised on Derrick May and Juan Atkins records. The whooshing synths and flute-like hook are pleasant enough, but are stretched a little too thin over the course of the song’s near-six-minute run time.

#64. “FINALE”

Found On: TRON: Legacy

Appropriately epic for a song called “Finale” at the end of a long-ass film soundtrack, and fairly rousing as well, though sadly absent of most of the score’s most memorable melodic motifs.